Story ID: 531
Flying with ViaSat Ka-band Satcom
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: The author experiences a flight in an Embraer Praetor 600 equipped with ViaSat's new Ka-band Satcom.
Word Count: 212
During a flight on Embraer’s Praetor 600 from Teterboro, New Jersey, to TAG Farnborough Airport before EBACE, AIN editor-in-chief Matt Thurber, along with other four passengers and two pilots on the flight, was able to try out ViaSat’s Ka-band Global Aero Terminal (GAT) 5510, which was recently STC’d for installation in super-midsize jets. For most of the flight over the Atlantic, we had a good connection to the ViaSat satcom network. Thurber ran two speed tests during the flight: one showed 7.68 Mbps download and 0.68 upload, while the second delivered 15.8 down and 1.67 up. 

All of the passengers aboard were all using their devices, some more than one, during the flight. One of the passengers was able to make a VoIP phone call, while Thurber used his MacBook Air computer to dial in to a Zoom teleconference. He had his video switched on so the participants could see video from the aircraft. The audio did fade in and out occasionally, he said. Thurber also tested streaming a YouTube video, which he reported as "solid and clear." In all, he ran four devices simultaneously: an iPhone, MacBook Air, iPad mini 4, and a Microsoft Windows Surface Go tablet. The ViaSat system had no trouble serving all of our devices, he said.